Auburn, NY --Reports that a Herman Avenue Elementary School pupil pointed a weapon at another boy earlier this week are exaggerated, said Auburn Enlarged City School District Superintendent J. D. Pabis.

“It was a plastic toy gun. It didn’t shoot projectiles, it didn’t shoot anything,” Pabis said on Friday.

Auburn police, however, have yet to determine whether the gun was real or not because the father of the boy threw it away in a school trash can before police were notified of the Monday afternoon incident, said Sgt. Greg Dann, supervisor of the police department’s school resource officers program.

“Whether it was a BB gun, a pellet gun or a toy gun, I can’t tell you and probably never will be able to tell you. It’s probably in the landfill,” Dann said.

Dann said police only became involved after the parent of the boy who was threatened called the school’s resource officer Monday night.

School Principal Cynthia Lattimore talked to the 8-year-old boy who brought the “toy gun” to school and to his father shortly after the incident, Pabis said. Lattimore gave the “plastic toy” to the boy’s father, who tossed it in the school trash, Pabis said.

Pabis said Lattimore did not tell the school resource officer about the incident and declined to say whether she should have done so. Lattimore did not return a telephone message.

Since the incident the father of the boy who was threatened told police he does not want to press charges against the other boy, Dann said.

Meanwhile, the 8-year-old boy who brought the “toy gun” was disciplined at school, Pabis said.

Police have tried without success to talk to the boy’s father and will not close their case until they speak to him, Dann said.